Spade Racing Opens a Box of 2021 Panini Chronicles Nascar Cards, Pack 3 of 6

Join us (well, me) as we/I go through a box of super-exclusive 2021 Panini Chronicles Nascar Cards, pack-by-pack, week-by-week.

Pack 3—Taylor Gray, a new Bubba day, and Suarez at play

FIRST LOOK: A nice autograph from Taylor Gray here.  While its cool to get a young driver’s autograph on what’s ostensibly his rookie card, shouldn’t he have used a gray marker?  Hope you’re taking color-coordinated notes Jeff Green, Ray Black Jr., and Rex White.

TO THE BACK: Yeah, these cards were definitely made right around the Daytona 500.  If they hadn’t been they’d have been able to capture Bubba’s amazingly mediocre 2021 season (Irony—this was written before his runner up finish in the 400!).

SAY WHAT: “I’m El Bombastico, the racing monster, who must eat other drivers’ careers to survive!”

RATING: 7 stage points out of 10

52 Pickup Race Car Looks “Sneaky Fast” at Track

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE (Boogertown, North Carolina)

You might not know it by looking at it standing still, but the #52 Monday Cigarettes race car fielded by 52 Pickup Racing is quite fast at the track.  One might even say that its “Sneaky Fast”, especially since it doesn’t always seem too fast when watching it race.

“Its really hard to tell, at least for the uneducated outsider”, said T.B. Dee, driver of the “Sneaky Fast” race car.  “But when you’re sitting in it, you really feel how fast it really is.  From the loud roar of the engine to the wind you feel when other race cars whip by you, it really is Sneaky in its Fastness.”

Team ownership agrees with Dee on his assessment of the car this season.

“I didn’t think it was that fast the first time I saw it”, said Earl Pruess, one of the fifty-two co-owners of the Sneakily Fast race car.  “But then I went to the track and saw it screaming around the track.  I mean, it still looked kinda slow compared to the other race cars that day, but I can see where I wouldn’t know exactly how fast it was—the thing doesn’t even have a speedometer in it.”

Dee said the team hopes to show any prospective sponsors just how Sneaky Fast the car can be.

“We’d love to take some future partners out on the race track”, Dee said.  “Unfortunately there’s no passenger seat in the car.  But feel free to climb in and hold on—we’ll be going at least ten miles an hour faster than you’d usually do in your daily driver out on the interstate.”

QUOTES: “Sneaky Fast is the best kind of fast—your competition doesn’t know what you’ve got!” —T.B. Dee, driver of the 52 Pickup Racing Monday Cigarettes race car.

“T.B.’s right about that—all the other team owner’s I’ve met have mistaken our race car for the pace car.” —Earl Pruess, co-owner of 52 Pickup Racing.

ABOUT 52 PICKUP RACING: 52 Pickup Racing is NASCAR Cup’s newest race team.  Based out of Boogertown North Carolina, the team employs up-and-coming driver T.B. Dee and was voted “Shiniest Hauler in the Infield” by its contemporaries.

For more information please visit the 52 Pickup Racing website at www.52pickupracing.com

For all media inquiries please contact Moxoc Media at moxoc(at)moxoc.com

Spade Racing Presents The Sophomores: LATE-AUGUST RANKINGS

PROGRAMMING NOTE: I’m on assignment covering a race this weekend, so here’s the sophomore rankings a week earlier than usual.

Last year Spade Racing took a look at the six drivers competing for Rookie of the Year.  This year we continue to look at that vaunted class (sans John Hunter Nemechek and Brennan Poole) as they strive to establish themselves while avoiding the “sophomore slump”.  Returning for 2021 is the PRETTY grade: Performance Relative to Equating Team’s Typical Year (its pretty much how well each driver is doing considering their equipment).  Here’s how things look coming out of the summer break heading into Daytona:

1. (tie) Tyler Reddick (Richard Childress Racing).  Best finish: 2nd (Homestead).  PRETTY grade: A-.  Tyler Reddick continues to impress—he’s reached the point where a 21st-place finish (at the Indy road course) is a disappointment and not a “good points day”.  Here’s hoping he can make the Playoffs so we can avoid referring to the final ten weeks as “one big test session”.

1. (tie) Christopher Bell (Joe Gibbs Racing).  Best finish: 1st (Daytona Road Course).  PRETTY grade: A-.  Considering how JGR hasn’t exactly been overpowering this year, AND Bell’s strong run as of late (sans Indy road course), its too close to call between him and Reddick.  Still, I listed Reddick first because, well, he was first before…and I don’t feel like copy-pasting.

3. Cole Custer (Stewart Haas Racing). Best finish: 10th (Talladega/Dover).  PRETTY grade: C-.  Cole sits 28th in points—bad for anyone, but especially bad for someone racing for what is ostensibly a top-level team.  I’d say his ride is in danger, but last I checked his dad still runs SHR.

4. Quin Houff (StarCom Racing).  Best finish: 22nd (Indy Road Course).  PRETTY grade: D-.  We nearly had a breakthrough at Indy, with Quin poking around the top-twenty before finishing 22nd.  Still, its better than somehow being two laps down at the start of the race.